THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 35 



entire torpidity of the seals' stomachs and bowels, in consequence of their being empty and unsupplied during- this 

 loiiu period, coupled with the intense activity and physical energy of the animals throughout that time, which, 

 however, in spite of the violation of a supposed physiological law, does not seem to affect them, for they come back 

 just as sleek, fat, and ambitious as ever, in the following season. 



I have examined the stomachs of hundreds which were driven up and killed immediately after their arrival in 

 the spring, near the village ; I have the word of the natives here, who have seen hundreds of thousands of them 

 opened during the slaughtering-seasons past, but in no single case has anything ever been found, other than the 

 bile and ordinary secretions of healthy organs of this class, with the marked exception of finding in every one a 

 snarl or cluster of worms,* from the size of a walnut to a bnnch as large as a man's fist. Fasting apparently has 

 no effect upon the worms, for on the rare occasion, and perhaps the last one that will ever occur, of killing three or 

 lour hundred old bulls late in the fall to supply the natives with canoe skins, I was present, and again examined 

 their paunches, finding the same ascaridae within. They were lively in these empty stomachs, and their presence, 

 I think, gives some reason for the habit which the old bulls have (the others do not) of swallowing small 

 water-worn bowlders, the stones in some of the stomachs weighing half a pound apiece, in others much smaller. 

 In one paunch I found over five pounds, in the aggregate, of large pebbles, which, in grinding against one another, 

 I believe, must comfort the seal by aiding to destroy, in a great measure, those intestinal pests. 



The sea-lion is also troubled in the same way by a similar species of worm, and I preserved the stomach of one 

 of these animals in which there was more than ten pounds of stones, some of them alone very great in size. Of 

 this latter animal, 1 suppose it could swallow bowlders that weigh two and three pounds each. I can ascribe 

 no other cause for this habit among those animals than that given, as they are the highest type of the carnivora, 

 eating fish as a regular means of subsistence, varying the monotony of this diet with occasional juicy fronds of 

 sea-weed or kelp, and perhaps a crab or such once in a while, provided it is small and tender or soft-shelled. 1 know 

 that the sailors say that the Callorhinus swallows these stones to "ballast" himself; in other words, to enable him 

 to dive deeply and quickly; but I noticed that the females and the "holluschickie" dive quicker and swim better 

 than the old fellows above specified, and they do so without any ballast. They also have less muscular power, 

 only a tithe of that which the " see-catch" possesses. No, the ballast theory is not tenable. (See note, 39, J.) 



Arrival of the cow-seals at the rookeries. — Between the 12th and 14th of June, the first of the cow- 

 seals, as a rule, come up from the sea; then the long agony of the waiting bulls is over, and they signalize it by 

 a period of universal, spasmodic, desperate fighting among themselves. Though they have quarreled all the time 

 from the moment they first lauded, and continue to do so until the end of the season, in August, yet that fighting 

 which takes place at this date is the bloodiest and most vindictive known to the seal. I presume that the heaviest 

 percentage of mutilation and death among the old males from these brawls, occur in this week of the earliest 

 appearance of the females. 



A strong contrast now between the males and females looms up, both in size and shape, which is heightened 

 by the air of exceeding peace and dove-like amiability which the latter class exhibit, in contradistinction to the 

 ferocity and saturnine behavior of the former. 



Description of the cow- seal. — The cows are from 4 to 4| feet in length from head to tail, and much more 

 shapely in their proportions than the bulls; there is no wrapping around their necks and shoulders of unsightly 

 masses of blubber; their lithe, elastic forms, from the first to the last of the season, are never altered; this they 

 are, however, enabled to keep, because in the provision of seal-economy, they sustain no protracted fasting period; 

 for, soon after the birth of their young they leave it on the ground and go to the sea for food, returning perhaps 

 to-morrow, perhaps later, even not for several days in fact, to again suckle and nourish it; having in the mean 

 time sped far off to distant fishing banks, and satiated a hunger which so active and highly organized an animal 

 must experience, when deprived of sustenance for any length of time. 



As the females come up wet and dripping from the water, they ai'e at first a dull, dirty-gray color, dark on the 

 back and upper parts, but in a few hours the transformation in their appearance made by drying is wonderful. 

 You would hardly believe that they could be the same animals, for they now fairly glisten with a rich steel and 

 maltese gray luster on the back of the head, the neck, and along down the spine, which blends into an almost 

 snow-white over the chest and on the abdomen. But this beautiful coloring in turn is again altered by exposure 

 to the same weather ; for after a few days it will gradually change, so that by the lapse of two or three weeks it is 

 a dull, rufous-ocher below, and a cinereous brown and gray mixed above. This color they retain throughout the 

 breeding-season, up to the time of shedding their coat in August. 



The head and eye of the female are exceedingly beautiful ; the expression is really attractive, gentle, and 

 intelligent ; the large, lustrous, blue-black eyes are humid and soft with the tenderest expression, while the small, 

 well formed head is poised as gracefully on her neck as can be well imagined; she is the very picture of benignity 

 and satisfaction, when she is perched up on some convenient rock, and has an opportunity to quietly fan herself, the 

 eyes half-closed and the head thrown back on her gently-swelling shoulders. 



The females land on these islands not from the slightest desire to see their uncouth lords and masters, but from 



Xcmaloda. 



